Sugar-Free
by Paisleylace
Summary: When Malik is in hospital, Ryou and Bakura are stuck with each other. Procrastination AU, post-canon Thiefshipping (but could also be read as Tornshipping).


Some random angsty fluff between Ryou and Bakura with Thiefshipping on the side, although if you read this as Tornshipping I certainly won't stop you. Post-canon, takes place some time after Spires in the same AU that I've decided to call the 'The Procrastination AU' AU. Malik randomly speaking other languages for terms of endearment, especially French, while Bakura has no clue what he's saying is a little headcanon of mine, hope it doesn't bug anyone.

Unbeta'd, my mistakes are in desperate need of maintenance.

* * *

 _helphelpheLAP HELP IM AT THE RADILOHY  
_

Ryou stared at the text, pinching the bridge of his nose as he sighed. "What have you gotten yourself into this time?"

'Radilohy''s closest equivalent Ryou could think of was 'Radiology'. A few floors away from Malik's room, and he had no idea how Bakura had managed to end up so far away. Or in distress. Maybe he saw the dangerous waste disposal boxes and thought he could steal a (used, but he probably wouldn't know that _)_ piece of medical equipment when no one was looking or something. Maybe he tried to pickpocket a nurse and ended up on the bad side of someone who just finished their second twelve hour night shift in a row. Random theft was just something Bakura did, a compulsion that he'd long since ceased being shocked at. It was one aspect of the Thief King that had managed to survive for three thousand years in the darkness after all, something Zorc was never able to take from him.

Domino City Hospital was a meandering maze of architecture that hadn't been updated since the seventies at best. Staff wandered to and fro, some carefully directing patients and their IV lines around, others in groups intently examining clipboards, and one jittery looking guy who stood in a dark corner clutching a paper cup of coffee like it was pure gold that Ryou didn't want to get too close too, so it took a while to finally track down the stairwell.

It was quiet down there at least; mostly just the whir of machinery and the occasional squeak of gurneys being wheeled around. Nobody chewing Bakura out for hands being where they shouldn't, nobody frantically rushing around looking for antiseptic...

Then there it was - a distant, colorful muttering. Bakura had a unique vocabulary when it came to expletives. Japanese, ancient Coptic, the pidgin form that he would've grown up learning and even a little modern Egyptian Arabic, all melded together into insults that had never been said before, and might not be ever again.

Following the sound, he soon found himself only a corner away. He stepped around, saw Bakura, and stepped right back. He jammed his knuckles in his mouth, trying desperately to contain the sharp wheeze of laughter that threatened to escape.

Bakura's voice pierced the hallway. "Ryou! Ryou get over here! I know you're there!"

"Right, right, just gimme a second."

"A second. Now come _here_!"

Ryou couldn't stop giggling. He'd been so stressed today that he couldn't stop, and looking at Bakura only kept them going.

He was nearly flat on his stomach beside a vending machine, his arm jammed up to the shoulder in the dispenser. It rattled as he tried to tug, as if to demonstrate just how stuck he was. He hadn't seen a scowl on his face so vicious since the time Bakura realized that, now in his true form, he was shorter than Ryou.

"What happened?" Ryou finally managed to choke out as he walked over.

"I paid for it!" He shouted defensively.

"I never said you didn't."

"You were thinking it."

"Well, yeah. Can you blame me?"

Bakura grunted, ineffectually shaking the machine again. "Guess not. All the other vending machines had a line, but this one didn't."

There was a folded piece of paper hanging onto the side of the machine by a single piece of tape, that came away as Ryou looked at it. It flew across the floor, bumping into his leg. On unfolding it, he found the words 'Out of Order' hastily scrawled.

He sighed; even after all this time, he still sometimes found it hard to believe that the man before him, his arm trapped in a _fucking vending machine_ , had come a single dice roll away from destroying _everything_. "... Let's get you out of there."

It almost dislocated Bakura's elbow, but eventually Ryou was able to free his arm from the machine. He rubbed at the joint almost automatically, trying his best to soothe the bruises from being trapped for so long that were rapidly forming.

Bakura let him do it, not pulling away or even making a sarcastic comment. Instead, he just stared at the floor. Ryou didn't mind silences but he could feel Bakura getting twitchier with each passing moment.

Before he could say anything however, the vending machine made an odd grinding noise, shuddered as if it had finally given up on the world, then released a deluge of candy all over the floor.

"... Did we do that?"

"Just grab it and go!"

* * *

"The five second rule doesn't apply to stuff still in the wrapper, right?"

"Since when do you follow the five second rule with anything?" Ryou mumbled as he chewed on a rejected treat. In the dash to escape most likely non-existent pursuers, Bakura's instincts had led them to an empty storage room, where they now sat picking through the loot. Bakura checked the ingredients on every brand and any that didn't pass his unknown test were soon thrown none too gently into Ryou's pile. As it stood he had no complaints, although his dentist might. "What are you looking for anyway?"

"Gelatin; Malik doesn't eat that shit."

"Because it's from animal bones and hooves they boil until goo comes out?"

"Mm-hm."

As Ryou watched him work, Bakura's hands began to tremble. Only just barely noticeable at first, but it didn't take long before the tremors became so strong that he couldn't hold the wrapper still long enough to read. Without asking, Ryou reached over and took it out of Bakura's hands, replacing it with his own fingers until they relaxed a little.

"He's going to be alright. He's been awake since they brought him in and nothing's broken. I bet he'll be out before the weekend - maybe even tomorrow morning."

Bakura bit his lip and didn't say anything.

"I mean it," he continued. "They just want to keep an eye on him to make sure he doesn't have a concussion or goes into shock."

"It could've been a lot worse," Bakura said, his voice shaking with each word. "He could've _died_. He could've been stuck in a _coma_ for the rest of his life."

"But he didn't! He's alive and he's probably wondering where you are. You can't torture yourself with 'what ifs' forever, believe me. It won't do either one of you any good."

Bakura's eyes met his and held them for a moment. "Hypocrite. Don't pretend you didn't spend the whole ride here doing the same thing. I bet you weren't even thinking about Malik, either."

With that, he went back to sorting the candy.

Malik had been driving around Domino, doing an errand for Rishid, when another driver sped through a red light and clipped his back wheel, sending him and the bike skidding out of control. He'd managed to jump off the bike before being slammed into something, but still hit the ground hard. Ryou had heard the words 'Malik was in a car accident' over the phone from Rishid and completely shut down, at least until Bakura showed up to drag him along to go see him. They'd had to take the train, since just the sight of Rishid's own car had Ryou unable to step outside the front door. The entire journey over, Bakura held Ryou's hand in a vice-like grip.

There was a poke to his shoulder, but he didn't really feel it. So it was a surprise when Bakura's arm found its way around his shoulders and pulled him close.

"... Sorry. I shouldn't have brought her into this."

"It's fine."

"It's not fine! It's _never_ fine -"

"Let's just concentrate on Malik."

A well-worn argument between the two of them seemed on the verge of repeating itself, so Ryou decided to cut it off at the neck. A screaming match wouldn't go down so well in a hospital after all. He picked up a bag of candy and started intently reading the ingredients, ignoring Bakura as hard as he could. A few moments later Bakura got back to work too, the pair of them silently sorting through with nothing but the hospital's intercom and the shuffling of footsteps outside to break the silence.

Then Bakura laughed. He couldn't tell the emotion behind it, or if there was supposed to be one. "Are we always gonna be like this?"

Ryou shrugged. "Like what?"

"... Never mind."

* * *

"Ah, there he is. What took you so long with my snacks, _mon cochon_?"

Bakura grumbled something incoherent under his breath as he dumped the entire bag of sweets on Malik's examination table, then lifted himself up to lean against Malik's side. Aside from the support brace around his wrist, he really did look alright. Then again, Ryou was no doctor.

"Looks like your wanking hand's out of commission," Bakura droned as he took in the extent of Malik's injuries, not a single hint of his earlier freakout anywhere to be heard. "What a shame."

"If _only_ I had someone willing to take care of that problem," Malik muttered as he popped a caramel into his mouth.

Bakura nuzzled into his neck. "If only..."

Honestly, by the intense look on both their faces and the way Bakura was practically crawling on him, the two of them had forgotten Ryou was even there. A sharp knock on the door saved Ryou from having to remind them himself.

The doctor raised an eyebrow at the pile of sugar as she told them Malik could be discharged. "So long as he doesn't start feeling nauseous or fainting, there's really nothing we can do here that can't be done at home. Just keep an eye on him, make him rest, and don't let him strain his wrist."

"Can you do anything to fix my bike, doc?"

He didn't sound like he was joking, at least not entirely.

"That's one for the insurance, unfortunately."

Malik flopped back on the table, his arm falling across his face with a dramatic flourish. He wouldn't have looked out of place in a trashy Georgian romance novel.

"We'll be out of here as soon as possible," Ryou chimed in, and he ignored the sense of Bakura's eyes on him. "Thank you for everything."

When the doctor left and he didn't move, Bakura poked Malik's cheek a couple of times.

"Fuck off, I'm in mourning. That new ceramic coat hadn't even made it to the highway yet and I bet it's already scratched to shit..."

With any luck, Rishid had already dropped it off at a local mechanic before Malik could get involved. He might have been discharged but he was in no shape to be hauling a bike around, and there was no doubt that Malik would spend hours trying to buff out the scratches himself if he could get away with it.

Bakura rolled his eyes and shoved all the sweets into his pockets, then hoisted Malik's still complaining dead weight over his shoulder in a fireman lift. "C'mon, let's go."

* * *

Malik dozed the entire way home, practically in Ryou's lap on the crowded train ride home to keep his back from bumping into the seat, while Bakura stood and held onto the nearby rail.

They didn't speak a word to each other, not on the train or the elevator right up to the penthouse. It wasn't until Malik was cajoled into bed, along with that little pug he hadn't gotten the name of yet, that Ryou stood in the doorway, hesitating to leave.

"Hey, Bakura?"

"Yeah?" He answered immediately.

"I'll stop pretending I'm fine with everything, if you stop trying to make me punish you for it," Ryou said, as steadily as he could manage. He didn't need to look at Bakura to hear him bristle in anger.

"You can't be serious. You're the one person who has _every_ right to-"

" _Stop trying to make me hurt you!_ I don't _want_ to hurt you! I don't want to hurt _anyone_!"

The outburst shocked Ryou as much as it did Bakura. "I-I'm... I'm sorry, I should leave, I-"

He was cut off by Bakura practically tackling him into the door, the two of them sliding to the ground. Over the sound of his own near deafening heartbeat, he could hear Bakura's plaintive voice. "Deal, deal, okay? _Deal_ , don't cry because of someone as stupid as me, okay?"

"You're not stupid," Ryou managed to choke out - he hadn't even noticed he was crying.

They sat there for a long time as he calmed himself down, half in the penthouse and half out, before Bakura pulled away from the embrace. He put both hands on Ryou's shoulders and looked at him sternly. "Are you alright?"

Ryou paused to think for a moment. All that came to mind was, "I don't know."

To his surprise, Bakura smiled, a wide toothy grin that would've never been able to fit on Ryou's face. "See? That wasn't so hard."


End file.
